You've got to decide whether you rise up and deal with the put downs, and so put downs that the devil brings against us, we need to recognise them and resist them. Put downs that people bring against us, we need to learn how to handle them. I'll show you in a moment what to do - and then there's another kind of put down, and that's the ones which come about because we think negatively about ourselves. Proverbs 23:7, as a man thinks in his heart, so he is. So the way you think about yourself; how do you see yourself? How do you see yourself? Now I'll give you an example of it. Jeremiah had a visitation of the spirit of God - a wonderful thing to have a visitation of God - and God begins to speak to him. Low and behold, God begins to say good things, and this is what God said to him. He said Jeremiah, before I formed you in the womb, I knew you, and I ordained and prepared that you would be a prophet to nations, so God's plan's are always good for us aren't they. But you know what his response was? He echoed what was in his heart. What did he echo? What was in his heart? I, I, I'm only a child, I'm only young, I'm too young for this stuff. This is what God said to him; he said don't talk like that. He stopped him giving voice to attitudes and a mindset inside, that would stop him totally fulfilling the call of God. In other words inside him, in his heart, in his inner life, he had issues about his youth.
When God spoke to Gideon - Gideon, you mighty man of valour. He said what? Me? I'm the youngest in the family. Gideon! You will deliver this nation. Now God is speaking His will, His purpose, which He will empower to take place. Gideon is reflecting what he really thinks, and he's reflecting his put downs - oh, we're the smallest tribe. How can any good come out of this? I'm the lowest in the family. Notice it's all about who I am, and God just ignored it completely, and kept going down the line declaring until in the end, he yielded and he actually aligned his internal thinking, and agreed with God said about him. Don't you think it's time that you aligned your thinking inside about what God says about you?
Are you an echo of what the devil is saying? You know what an echo is? HELLO - hello, hello, hello, hello, hello. You get in one of these big valleys and you yell out, or a big cave. HELLO - hello, hello, hello, hello, hello. That's the echo. Now listen, let me ask you this question. Are you an echo of what the devil has been saying about you? Are you an echo of what your family have been saying about you? Are you an echo of what your teachers have been saying about you? Are you just an echo, repeating the put downs that someone else put into your life, or are you a voice that comes from hearing what God says, and saying things that determine your destiny? An echo or a voice? To be a voice, you've got to hear God personally. Jesus said, Matthew 4:4, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that God is speaking. The revelatory words of God is how we live our life, so are you living by echo, by what others have said about you, by the voice of your experience, the voice of your circumstance, the voice of your feelings, the voice of your father, who has long died, but told you you're an idiot, and you'd never get anywhere? The voice of a teacher, who said you're a fool, you'll fail, you'll never go anywhere? What are you living by?
Or are you living by the words that God says? You are My son, My daughter, created in My image, designed to reflect uniquely what I'm like. I've got good things for you. What are you living by? Well, if we were to listen to you talk, we'll know what you're living by, and you have to decide whether you'll be an echo or a voice, whether you're going to echo the put downs of the world, or whether you'll listen to what God says, and start to speak that, and think that, and agree with that. We choose what we agree with. Now of course, it's easy to agree with the put downs; I'm no good, you know? See, we tend to listen to the put downs and agree with them and see, we've got to stop doing that. Now let me just show you what happens, the impact on your life, when people put you down. It can be all kinds of places people put us down, but there are certain things happen when we live in a family environment of put downs. Sometimes it's the brothers, there's one girl in the family, and all the brothers gang up on the girl. Sometimes it's one guy, and all the girls gang up on the guy, and sometimes it's the dad puts down the women, sometimes it's the mum puts down the men. It's through life. This is wherever we go, we're going to find it, but it will impact you, and the thing is for you to find out, well, have I been impacted by some of these put downs? Have I come into agreement with it, and am I echoing it? Or am I listening to what God says about me?